I’ve been in a poetry mood lately, guys.

She thinks too much.
She philosophizes and soliloquizes,
and when nobody’s looking,
she writes things down.
She analyzes
both what she does and what is done to her,
and she chastises herself for the majority of it —
but then she stops.

She realizes that the vast size
of her responsibility has been elephantized
to the point of disjointed reality,
and she then tries to organize
her guilt into her new frame of reference:
I am me.

I am me.
I am who I aim to be.
And if my aim is the same as what they want me to be,
Then there is no harm.
But if they want from me what is not me,
Then theirs is the shame, for I am the same.

And in her eyes,
To internalize the external pressure
Would be to compromise her soul.
And this would be the demise of her hold
On life, on love, on the pieces of herself that make her
Her.
Herself.
Her heart, her voice, her body.
Her.
Hers.

But they tell her otherwise:
You are a prize
(not the winner, nor even in the game).
This enterprise, built by lies,
Still surprises her today.
They tell her,
You think too much.